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Does anyone else find it absurd that the Government can own patents? If you consider the purpose of patents is to incentivize investment into research in exchan

Does anyone else find it absurd that the Government can own patents? If you consider the purpose of patents is to incentivize investment into research in exchange for securing a limited-time monopoly, then what is the purpose of Government owned patents? Since Government exists for the public good, it should already be incentivized to produce research. Patenting that research so that people can't utilize it defeats the whole point. What am I missing?

sneak 6y ago
It is already such that the US government can't own copyrights, as I understand it. Crown copyright is a thing in the UK, though. I am still a little surprised that they are allowed to keep secrets, for the same reason.
- gowld 6y ago
  It's important to keep secrets from other countries. The general public can't be forced to keep secrets, and therefore can't be privy to national secrets.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    Copyright doesn't keep secrets it provides a way to stop others from using it. A trade secret does. A patent doesn't.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It is already such that the US government can't own copyrights Yes, it can. US-government created works are automatically public domain in the US, but the government, IIRC, still holds international copyrights on them, and moreover can own (even American) copyrights on anything whose creation makes it subject to copyright.
wcarss 6y ago
Not trying to justify it, but one could read it defensively in the same light that all employer-patent-grabs share: If you invent something directly in the course of your assigned tasks as an employee, i.e. they instruct you to invent X and you then do so, for pay, they want some legal basis to prevent you from turning around and charging them for a license to use/sell the invention they just paid you to create.
GavinMcG 6y ago
Holding the patent allow the government to recoup its investment to some degree. Governments don't necessarily have to treat patents the same way as private companies do, either. Legislation can require a fairly open licensing scheme for reasonable rates, for example, which balances recouping expense with making the publicly-funded work publicly available.
leetcrew 6y ago
it doesn't really make sense under the model where patents exist solely to incentivize private investment. I don't think that necessarily makes it absurd; at least, I can envision cases where the government owning a patent could ultimately serve the public good. suppose the government spends a large amount of public funds on research that turns out to have a very narrow commercial application. if the findings can be freely used by a couple niche companies, it's effectively a subsidy to them. not necessarily a bad thing, but we might want the government to be more intentional about granting subsidies. if instead the companies have to negotiate a license, the government can recoup some of the public's money and allocate it to more research.
a_e_k 6y ago
Given first-to-file, it seems reasonable for the Government to defensively file on research that it's directly produced. Otherwise, you might end up with someone else filing on that research and then demanding the Government pay them to use the products of its own research. Moreover, just because you own a patent, you're not obligated to charge anyone to license it.
- gowld 6y ago
  They don't need to file patents, they only need to publish prior art.
  - jagged-chisel 6y ago
    While true, government-held patents are a bit more preemptive and should ultimately prevent any profiteering on patents while the patent is challenged.
  - kolinko 6y ago
    Only in theory.
    - jerry80 6y ago
      Not really. Prior art is used as a defense against patent suits all the time.
closeparen 6y ago
Someone else out there is equally indignant that government would let capital take any nonzero profit off the fruits of publicly funded research.
snowwrestler 6y ago
The purpose of the U.S. patent system is the public dispersion of new knowledge. You publicly disclose how your invention works, and in return you get a limited monopoly on its production. You don’t need a patent system to incentivize research, people and companies can just treat new inventions as trade secrets and never tell anyone how they work. Plenty of tech companies already do this. Google has not filed patents disclosing exactly how their search system works, for example. The U.S. military has an additional tool to protect knowledge: classification. Again, there is no patent on public file for a functioning hydrogen fusion bomb. So why would the Navy file a patent on something? It is plausible that their goal in doing so was to disclose its existence.
- jerry80 6y ago
  >The purpose of the U.S. patent system is the public dispersion of new knowledge. That's its (stated) purpose from the viewpoint of society. Patents' purposes from the viewpoint of the inventor is to secure the 20-year monopoly on the invention (or to secure a plausible threat). Nobody would file a patent for the sole purpose of disclosure. If you really want to disclose something, there are a million easier, better, and cheaper ways to do it. >So why would the Navy file a patent on something? It is plausible that their goal in doing so was to disclose its existence. If they wanted disclosure, they could just post it on their website and issue a press release. Or publish a book. Or a journal article. Or add it to their podcast. They already do all these things. Why not for this?

sneak 6y ago

It is already such that the US government can't own copyrights, as I understand it. Crown copyright is a thing in the UK, though. I am still a little surprised that they are allowed to keep secrets, for the same reason.

gowld 6y ago
It's important to keep secrets from other countries. The general public can't be forced to keep secrets, and therefore can't be privy to national secrets.
- wolco2 6y ago
  Copyright doesn't keep secrets it provides a way to stop others from using it. A trade secret does. A patent doesn't.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> It is already such that the US government can't own copyrights Yes, it can. US-government created works are automatically public domain in the US, but the government, IIRC, still holds international copyrights on them, and moreover can own (even American) copyrights on anything whose creation makes it subject to copyright.

wcarss 6y ago

Not trying to justify it, but one could read it defensively in the same light that all employer-patent-grabs share: If you invent something directly in the course of your assigned tasks as an employee, i.e. they instruct you to invent X and you then do so, for pay, they want some legal basis to prevent you from turning around and charging them for a license to use/sell the invention they just paid you to create.

GavinMcG 6y ago

Holding the patent allow the government to recoup its investment to some degree. Governments don't necessarily have to treat patents the same way as private companies do, either. Legislation can require a fairly open licensing scheme for reasonable rates, for example, which balances recouping expense with making the publicly-funded work publicly available.

leetcrew 6y ago

it doesn't really make sense under the model where patents exist solely to incentivize private investment. I don't think that necessarily makes it absurd; at least, I can envision cases where the government owning a patent could ultimately serve the public good. suppose the government spends a large amount of public funds on research that turns out to have a very narrow commercial application. if the findings can be freely used by a couple niche companies, it's effectively a subsidy to them. not necessarily a bad thing, but we might want the government to be more intentional about granting subsidies. if instead the companies have to negotiate a license, the government can recoup some of the public's money and allocate it to more research.

a_e_k 6y ago

Given first-to-file, it seems reasonable for the Government to defensively file on research that it's directly produced. Otherwise, you might end up with someone else filing on that research and then demanding the Government pay them to use the products of its own research. Moreover, just because you own a patent, you're not obligated to charge anyone to license it.

gowld 6y ago
They don't need to file patents, they only need to publish prior art.
- jagged-chisel 6y ago
  While true, government-held patents are a bit more preemptive and should ultimately prevent any profiteering on patents while the patent is challenged.
- kolinko 6y ago
  Only in theory.
  - jerry80 6y ago
    Not really. Prior art is used as a defense against patent suits all the time.

closeparen 6y ago

Someone else out there is equally indignant that government would let capital take any nonzero profit off the fruits of publicly funded research.

snowwrestler 6y ago

The purpose of the U.S. patent system is the public dispersion of new knowledge. You publicly disclose how your invention works, and in return you get a limited monopoly on its production. You don’t need a patent system to incentivize research, people and companies can just treat new inventions as trade secrets and never tell anyone how they work. Plenty of tech companies already do this. Google has not filed patents disclosing exactly how their search system works, for example. The U.S. military has an additional tool to protect knowledge: classification. Again, there is no patent on public file for a functioning hydrogen fusion bomb. So why would the Navy file a patent on something? It is plausible that their goal in doing so was to disclose its existence.

jerry80 6y ago
>The purpose of the U.S. patent system is the public dispersion of new knowledge. That's its (stated) purpose from the viewpoint of society. Patents' purposes from the viewpoint of the inventor is to secure the 20-year monopoly on the invention (or to secure a plausible threat). Nobody would file a patent for the sole purpose of disclosure. If you really want to disclose something, there are a million easier, better, and cheaper ways to do it. >So why would the Navy file a patent on something? It is plausible that their goal in doing so was to disclose its existence. If they wanted disclosure, they could just post it on their website and issue a press release. Or publish a book. Or a journal article. Or add it to their podcast. They already do all these things. Why not for this?